Page 22 of My One-Night Heir
Would he be that old-fashioned?
‘Have I asked you to be?’ he drawls.
Of course he hasn’t. I’m not the society sort of wife Dain Anzelotti would have. The beautiful model with the famous family pedigree that he was photographed with minutes after being with me, however, she’d be perfect. I grit my teeth.
‘I’m not interested in marriage,’ he adds.
‘That night you were unashamedly anti-kids too.’
‘What’s happened isn’t Lukas’s fault. I’ll be there for him.’
‘What does that even mean?’ I ask smartly. ‘Will you tolerate his existence? He won’t be too much of an inconvenience?’ I step forward. If there’s no commitment between us there’s an easy escape for Dain and I already know no one can be relied on. ‘You get one chance,’ I mutter fiercely. ‘If you ever walk out on Lukas then you’re out of his life for good.’
‘Right back at you.’ He steps forward to go toe to toe with me. ‘I don’t believe in marriage.’ He sneers through the word. ‘We’ll have an unbreakable, legally enforceable contract. It doesn’t need to be difficult or emotive. We’ll agree to terms and we’ll get on with it.’
He means an access plan. He means a dictate on where we live and how long for. What school Lukas will go to. Which doctor. Every aspect of his life will be agreed in advance between us. I’m going to lose full autonomy and have to agree with a man used to getting his own way. He’s watching me closely and the longer I remain silent, the bigger the storms grow in his eyes.
‘My parents’ marriage was a mess,’ he suddenly whispers. ‘I was weaponised. Victimised. Blamed. That’s never happening to Lukas. We’ll work everything out between us well ahead of time so he never has to feel—’
He breaks off and takes a sharp breath. He glances away from me to look at our baby on the soft rug.
He doesn’t want to tell me more. Fair enough. There’s plenty I don’t want to tell him either.
‘Okay, we’ll work it out,’ I agree softly. With no marriage. No dependency. ‘We both want the best for him.’
The problem is we might not always agree on what that ‘best’ will be.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dain
I NEVER DISCUSS my family, but this morning has been shock after shock and my new reality is so far from normal I’m spinning. I glance at Lukas to ground myself and remember the priority here. He has my eyes and colouring. But knowing that Talia stopped trying to contact me grates nerves already stripped raw. Instinct screams at me to scoop him up and squirrel him to the safety of my own home. But instinct doesn’t eliminate ignorance—I’ve no idea how to care for a baby, how to create the safety I fundamentally crave for him. It’s all emotion and no experience. I don’t like it. I don’t like any of it. Especially the fact that I can’t do this without her. And I’m angry with her. Yet every damn time I glance at her every damn atom within me heats. I can’t lose control. She hasn’t allowed me any in all this and that’s not something I can tolerate. Family drama upended my life before and I’ll never let it happen again.
She says she doesn’t want anything from me, yet I see that same heat I feel in her eyes when she looks at me. She can’t hide it and I’m tempted to use whatever power I might have to engineer an advantage. But then I remember how quickly she ran that night. Was it me or is it something within herself?
It must be me. And it must be bad. Because it’s unbelievable that not even my money was a motivation for her to try harder.
Lukas begins to cry. While I freeze, Talia steps forward to pick him up.
‘I need to top him up and hopefully he’ll sleep again.’ She looks around for a chair to nurse him in.
I can’t stand to watch that sweet intimacy again so I walk away. I check the rooms, fiddle with the heating, attending to the basics—shelter, warmth...food? I grab my phone, start a list and make an order. Gradually I feel calmer. I call my legal team then my primary assistant. There’s a huge amount to arrange and not a lot of time to do it.
As I finish the fourth call I see a car pulling into the driveway. Relieved, I head out to meet the delivery guy and carry the bags back to the kitchen.
Talia appears in the kitchen just as I’m serving up. The shadows beneath her eyes have deepened since I first saw her this morning, plus she has a pinched look as if she has a headache. While Lukas is thriving, she needs replenishing. I clench my jaw to crush back my growl of frustration. ‘He’s asleep?’
She nods and I glimpse how bony her shoulders are.
I jerk a thumb towards the kitchen counter. ‘Sit. Eat.’
She glares but mercifully doesn’t argue.
Lunch is a simple spread—warm soup, crunchy bread, soft butter. As she eats, I watch colour slowly return to her cheeks. I eat as well. But it feels more dangerous to be around her without Lukas.
‘You should rest,’ I mutter as soon as she’s done. ‘You look like you need it.’
She looks startled, then indignant.